Montgomery's new 'icon' to soar over interstate

In this April 12, 2013 photo, Derrick Smith works on the Wright Flyer that Burt Steel is building for Montgomery's Wright Brother's Park, formerly Overlook Park in Montgomery, Ala.. The full-scale model will sit on pylons at the park and be visible from Interstate 65.

AP Photo/Montgomery Advertiser

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Starting in July, people driving into Montgomery from Birmingham won't have to rely on interstate signs to know they've reached the Capital City. They'll be greeted by a 42-foot-wide, full-scale, steel replica of the first Wright brothers flyer hovering overhead.

It's an entrance that's meant to make a statement.

"If you drive through Birmingham, you see the Vulcan statue and you know you're in Birmingham," Montgomery director of development Chad Emerson said. "This will be a similar kind of icon."

The flyer will sit at the summit of what is now Overlook Park on Maxwell Boulevard, held aloft by a series of support poles and facing the overpass that leads to Maxwell Air Force Base, where the Wrights opened the nation's first civilian flying school. The city used a state grant to renovate the park, adding a pavilion, better lighting and a staircase that leads to the riverfront.

Montgomery company Burt Steel is building the flyer for free, working from detailed models and records of the one that the Wright brothers built.

"I keep saying I'm two weeks out, and then we add more details," said Lee Burt, who's overseeing the plane's construction.

The pilot of the original flyer would lie in a harness and control its direction by shifting his body weight and using a series of pulleys and a small control stick. The wings could turn up and down to provide lift, and the plane was powered by a four-horsepower engine.

All of those details will be included, Burt said. They'll cover the top of the finished flyer in a steel wrap but leave the bottom exposed so that people standing underneath it can see the framework of the wings.

"As you come in and come over the river, we really wanted that wow factor," Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange said. "The showpiece will be the Wright flyer. It will be an iconic picture, particularly at night with the lights on it.

"That will be the forerunner of a Wright (brothers) museum that we're talking about doing along Maxwell Boulevard."

The Wrights' great-grand-niece, Amanda Wright Lane, will help the city rededicate the park July 2 as Wright Brothers Park. The ceremony, which will include a tribute to Maxwell Air Force Base and the history of flight in Montgomery, was pushed back from June so that Lane could attend.

The City Council still needs to approve the renaming of Overlook Park, but Strange doesn't expect that to be an obstacle.

"Somebody asked me a couple months ago who the Overlook family was," he laughed.

Meanwhile, workers continue to add the final touches to what Strange expects to be a "signature" of the city for decades to come. It's a process Burt doesn't intend to rush.

"That's what sold us on it — to have something that someday maybe my kids and my grandkids will be able to see and we can say, 'We did that for the city,'" Burt said. "That's why we're spending so much time on it. We know it's going to be there a long time, and we want it to be built to last."